The air traffic operation is increasingly exposed to incursions by unruly passengers and also to terrorist attacks. Thus, particularly, those incidents substantially endanger the flight safety in which access to the sensitive cockpit area is achieved by force. Different technical and personnel and safety measures are in existence for protecting the cockpit. However, these are unsatisfactory in practice. As an example it should be mentioned that armed air marshals who are present incognito among the passengers cannot effectively protect the cockpit in particular instances where hostages are taken and where several terrorists are present. On the other hand it is also not possible to hermetically seal the cockpit from the passenger cabin, for example by a separation wall. Due to operational reasons it is self understood that the cockpit must have an access to the cabin so that authorized persons can enter the cockpit at any time without hindrance and to leave it again. For example, when pilots need to inspect equipment in the cabin or when a flight attendant needs to bring food and when an information exchange with the pilots needs to be maintained.
Accordingly it is an object of the invention to provide safety measures for the cockpit area which achieve an effective protection against an unauthorized penetration of persons into the cockpit. Simultaneously the accessability of authorized persons must be assured.